4 Times Castling In Chess Is Bad

Castle before move 10 .

It's one of the first rules that you're taught as a new chess player .

And it's good advice most of the time .

But there are four specific situations where it's usually the wrong decision to castle .

And in this video , I'm gonna explain what those situations are .

So that when you find yourself in those positions in your games , you'll know to not castle .

Let's get started .

So the first situation in chess when you don't want to castle is when you've already made weakening pawn moves on that side of the board .

So as a reminder , the whole point of Castling is to get your king to safety , you want it to be safe behind a wall of pawns out of the center .

And if that's not happening when you castle , it might not be the right decision .

So for example , if we were to play the move G three , which is a really bad move in this position , and then we'll say black plays D six and white now decides to castle .

This is a big mistake because these weaknesses , uh black is gonna be all over that , right ?

And white is in big trouble right away .

So when white moved this pawn forward , it created weaknesses on these two squares that were not there before .

Right ?

Prior to that , the pawn is controlling everything .

So white can't , I'm sorry , black can't do that .

The pawn will just take the bishop .

So let's talk about these three ponds because um G three is just one example .

F three a lot of times is also bad because it opens up this diagonal and then your kin can be attacked and there's weaknesses on these squares .

And then even H three sometimes can be bad .

Although H three is probably the one pawn that if you're gonna move up pa forward , this is usually OK because these squares are still covered .

And actually a lot of times towards the end of the game , if you're worried about back rank mate H three is a good move to play anyway because it gives your king some breathing room and you have a space to escape to if you need to .

So , so if you do want a castle and the H pond has moved up one square , that's probably OK .

Most of the time you do have to be careful .

Like in this case , the bishops pinning this pawn .

So theoretically black's queen could go there or blacks knight could end up there and , and you couldn't take it because the pin .

So you know , it does create a weakness .

But this is one of the better ones if you have to choose .

And one more thing I'll say about the move G three , you actually see a lot of high level players that will feed and chet the bishop behind the pond .

And this is a very different situation than what I just showed you .

It's perfectly fine to castle here because the bishop fills in the gap where the pawn , you know , has moved forward .

So there's no weaknesses , the bishop is controlling those squares .

So this is an exception to the rule um when it's OK to castle , as long as your bishop is there .

All right .

So the second situation you don't want to castle is if you're going to come under attack by a pawn storm from your opponent .

Now , there's very obvious ways to see this .

So for example , if my opponent , for whatever reason plays age six and then G five and I'm debating Castling , well , guess what might not be the best idea because I can already see he's pushing pawns to attack my king .

So I'm not gonna castle here .

I'm gonna focus on maybe opening up the center , maybe developing the bishop , uh the queen and castling this way might be something .

So pay attention to pawn storms now .

And most of you are probably thinking , well , nobody just pushes pawns forward like this most of the time .

You're right .

They don't .

But there's a more subtle way that this can happen , that's very dangerous .

So let me , show you another example .

All right .

So here's another example where black has just played bishop to B seven and white is contemplating Castling kings side and white thinks it looks fine .

There's no pawns advanced .

I have no weaknesses .

All my pawns are , you know , controlling everything .

So I'm gonna castle and what black does now is play H six .

And then white's like , OK , I gotta move my bishop and then black plays G five and white's like , OK , I gotta move my bishop again and then black plays maybe G four .

And now white has to move his knight .

And now in this case , night H four is pretty good .

It kind of blockades the position .

Uh But the point here that I want you to take away is that look at how many pawn moves Black got towards White's king all with tempo because white had those pieces that were being attacked .

And so this is something to pay attention to if you have pieces like this , that can be attacked by pawns .

Your opponent is gonna be able to create an attack with tempo and it can be very dangerous because in this case , white didn't have time to , you know , counterattack in the center or finish developing .

They had to move their bishop and again , had to move the bishop .

And now in this case , like if I'm black , I'm probably gonna play like E six first to defend the pawn and then I'm gonna play H five next , let's say knight B and E two H five .

And now White has to be really careful .

I mean , this is a serious attack , right ?

H four is threatening to , to maybe trap the bishop .

Then G four is coming and the knights knock , I can't go there anymore because now the queen and , and White's gonna be probably in trouble .

So right here at this moment when White decided to castle , if I'm playing this position , I'm probably gonna think twice .

And I'm gonna wait , maybe a move or two or maybe I'm gonna play night beat two first .

I'm gonna see what Black does .

Maybe Black will , will go here .

Because now if I Castle and Black plays H Six , I have the option to just trade this off and I don't lose a whole bunch of tempo or whatever it is on my pieces , right ?

So I can take here and then let's say takes and Black can still do this plan .

But now at least I get some time I can go ahead and counterattack in the center .

I have , I have some uh time to do something , right ?

So that's a very subtle difference , but it makes a huge difference in a lot of games .

All right .

Situation .

Number three , when you don't want a castle is when your king is actually just safer staying in the center .

So let me show you an example .

Here's the French defense and I don't play the French , but it shows a very good point .

So this is one of the main lines where black trades off .

The bishop brings the night here and then white plays the move queen to G four attacking this pawn on G7 .

Now , one of the main lines that black can play is actually castling .

It's perfectly playable , but the problem is now , black has to really start defending .

OK ?

Because White's gonna play bishop to D three line up over here .

This bishop can come in to G five H four is an option .

The knight can come in .

You know , the queen's already well placed .

It can easily go lots of different places .

And black is gonna have to do some , some defending and try to counterattack over here on the queen side .

But an alternative and another move that is very , very strong .

Is this just the move came to fa and you might say , wow , isn't that like bad ?

Well , no , it's not because it depends the pond and the center is locked up .

These ponds can't do anything , right ?

So because of that , this is actually , I would say safer for black than castling because if something happens over here where like all these pieces start coming in and you know , whatever black has to get away , you can always move back here and run over here and , and be totally fine .

Go back .

If I had castled here , I can't just move my king over there .

I'm gonna be stuck .

I'm gonna get blocked by my pieces .

II , I have to stay over here and defend and hope for the best .

So the take away sometimes it's better to keep your king in the center or do a move like king F eight because it's safer .

And this is a very case by case basis , this is not a general rule , but in certain situations when the center of the board is locked up , that's when you want to be looking for moves like this sometimes instead of actually castling , right ?

The fourth situation you don't want to castle is if it's going to prevent you from attacking on that side of the board .

So what do I mean , let me show you an example .

I like to play this system against the , the modern defense or against the kings Indian uh where I put both pawns in the center the night on C three and then I play the move F three .

And then after something like this , black castles , I have the option .

If I want , I can just play like bishop C four , bring this night here and then castle king's side .

There's nothing wrong with that totally playable .

But if I do that , uh we'll say black makes some moves , I'm not gonna be able to attack Black's king anymore unless I'm willing to really put my king at risk by pushing these pawns forward .

So what I like to do instead of that is not castle here and sometimes I'll castle queen's side .

But a lot of times I just leave the king there and that way I can attack with these pawns and I'm not putting my king at risk .

Right .

I leave the pawns over here .

Uh But by Castling there , I'm essentially saying , OK , I'm not gonna be able to attack on the , on the king side anymore , at least not easily .

So this is kind of a rare situation when , when you're gonna find yourself in these moments .

But it's definitely something you want to keep in mind if you are planning on trying to attack your opponent , like I like to do in the system with moves like G four and H four .

I don't want my king to be over there .

So that's reason number four .

Hey , thanks for watching .

I hope you learned a thing or two about when to not castle in chess as always , stay sharp , play smart .